Wandering Thoughts

By its nature, anarchist theory is a vagabond theory, light of step,
always on the move. The reason is simple. Reality is not a static
thing, but a play of phenomena in which every individual is actively
immersed. Entrenchment of positions makes no real sense, but traps the
anarchist in the bogs of ideology and militancy. For this reason,
anarchist theoretical endeavors go their farthest when they are taken
lightly and playfully, as explorations, experiments and adventures, not
tasks or duties. What appears here is done in that spirit. Some of it I
wrote years ago, and no longer necessarily agree with, but I think it
has a certain challenge, a certain bite to it.

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The Wild Dog Howls

A story is told of Diogenes, probably the best known of the ancient
greek cynics: It is said that one day, as he was sunning himself in the
bathtub he called home, Alexander the “great” came to speak with him.
This emperor of many nations said, “ I am Alexander, prince of Macedonia
and the world. I have heard you are a great philosopher. Do you have
any words of wisdom for me?” Annoyed at such a petty disturbance of his
calm, Diogenes answered, “Yes, you're standing in my sun. Get out of the
way.” Though this story is most likely fictional, it reflects the scorn
in which cynics held all authority and their boldness in expressing
this scorn. These self-proclaimed “dogs” (wild dogs, of course) rejected
hierarchy, social restraints and the alleged need for laws and greeted
these with sarcastic mockery.

How utterly different this ancient cynicism was from what now goes by
that name. Several years ago, a radical group in England called the
Pleasure Tendency published a pamphlet entitled “Theses Against
Cynicism”. In this pamphlet, they criticize an attitude of hip
detachment, of shallow, sarcastic despair — and particularly the
penetration of this attitude into anti-authoritarian and revolutionary
circles.

The proponents of this present-day “cynicism” are everywhere. The hip,
sarcastic comedy of Saturday Night Live or the Comedy Channel presents
no real challenge to the ruling powers. In fact, this smirking
know-it-all-ism is the yuppie attitude par excellence. It has
nothing to do with a real understanding of what's going on, but is
rather a justification for conformity. “Yes, we know what the
politicians and corporate executives are up to. We know it's all a dirty
game. But there's nothing we can do about it, so we're gonna get our
piece of the action”. There's nothing we can do about it — that is the
message of this modern cynicism — not disdain for authority, but disdain
for those who still dare to challenge it rather than joining in its
game with a knowing smirk.

This attitude has entered the circles of so-called revolutionaries and
anarchists through the back-door of post-modern philosophy in which
ironic hyper-conformity is presented as a viable revolutionary strategy.
With a straight face (or just the trace of a smirk), the most radical
of the post-modern philosophers tell us that we need only push the logic
of capitalism to its own “schizophrenic” extreme and it will break down
on its own. For these present-day “radical” cynics, attempts to attack
and destroy this society are foolish and ineffective, and attempts to
create one's own life in opposition to this society is attachment to an
out-dated individualism. Of course, these mostly french philosophers are
rarely read. Like mainstream “cynicism”, post-modern “cynicism” needs
it hip popularizers — and they certainly have appeared. Sarcastically
tearing down every significant insurgent idea or activity of the past
century while promoting pathetic liberal eclecticism and ridiculous art
or mystical movements as “revolutionary” or “iconoclastic”, these
alternative yuppies — who often claim to reject individuality — mainly
just to promote themselves and their own pathetic projects. One needs
only to notice Steward Home's Mona Lisa smirk to realize he is just Jay
Leno with a shaved head and a pair of Docs.

Perhaps the worst effect of the post-modern penetration into anarchist
circles is its reinforcement of a tendency to reject theory. any
attempts to understand society in its totality in order to fight it more
effectively are either called dogmatic or are seen as proof that those
who make such attempts are hopelessly naive with no understanding of the
complexity of “post-modern” post-industrial society. Of course, the
“understanding” these oh-so-wise(-ass) anti-theorists have is simply
their faith in the impossibility of analysis, a faith which allows them
to continue their ritual of piecemeal activism which has long since
proven ineffective for anything other than occasionally pushing the
social system into making changes necessary for its own continued
reproduction. Those who continue to make insurgent theory are accused by
the self-proclaimed activists of sitting in ivory towers, regardless of
how much this insurgence is put into practice.

When one considers the original Greek cynics, one is averse to using
the same term for their modern namesakes. Yet the present-day “cynics”
are much more like the dogs we are familiar with — pathetic, dependent,
domesticated pets. Like well-trained puppies, they rarely make it past
the front yard gate before they run back cowering to the safety of their
master's house; then they learn to bark and snarl at the wild dogs who
dare to live outside the fence and, in exchange for a milk-bone, lick the
hands that keep them on the leash. I would rather be among the wild
dogs howling out my scorn for every master, prepared to bite any hand
that tries to tame. I reject the sarcastic despair that passes as
cynicism today, in order to grasp as a weapon the untamed cynicism which
dares to tell authority, “You're standing in my sun. Get out of the
way!”